1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to expandable intraluminal grafts (“stents”), and more particularly to expandable intraluminal grafts incorporating tabs for increasing the radiopacity thereof. The present invention also relates to increasing the radiopacity of other medical devices.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) is a therapeutic medical procedure used to increase blood flow through an artery. In this procedure, the angioplasty balloon is inflated within the stenosed vessel, or body passageway, in order to shear and disrupt the wall components of the vessel to obtain an enlarged lumen. With respect to arterial stenosed lesions, the relatively incompressible plaque remains unaltered, while the more elastic medial and adventitial layers of the body passageway stretch around the plaque. This process produces dissection, or a splitting and tearing, of the body passageway wall layers, wherein the intima, or internal surface of the artery or body passageway, suffers fissuring. This dissection forms a “flap” of underlying tissue which may reduce the blood flow through the lumen, or completely block the lumen. Typically, the distending intraluminal pressure within the body passageway can hold the disrupted layer, or flap, in place. If the intimal flap created by the balloon dilation procedure is not maintained in place against the expanded intima, the intimal flap can fold down into the lumen and close off the lumen, or may even become detached and enter the body passageway. When the intimal flap closes off the body passageway, immediate surgery is necessary to correct the problem.
Recently, transluminal prostheses have been widely used in the medical arts for implantation in blood vessels, biliary ducts, or other similar organs of the living body. These prostheses are commonly known as stents and are used to maintain, open, or dilate tubular structures. An example of a commonly used stent is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,665 filed by Palmaz on Nov. 7, 1985, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Such stents are often referred to as balloon expandable stents. Typically the stent is made from a solid tube of stainless steel. Thereafter, a series of cuts are made in the wall of the stent. The stent has a first smaller diameter which permits the stent to be delivered through the human vasculature by being crimped onto a balloon catheter. The stent also has a second, expanded diameter, upon application of a radially, outwardly directed force, by the balloon catheter, from the interior of the tubular shaped member.
However, one concern with such stents is that they are often impractical for use in some vessels such as the carotid artery. The carotid artery is easily accessible from the exterior of the human body, and is close to the surface of the skin. A patient having a balloon expandable stent made from stainless steel or the like, placed in their carotid artery, might be susceptible to severe injury through day to day activity. A sufficient force placed on the patient's neck could cause the stent to collapse, resulting in injury to the patient. In order to prevent this, self-expanding stents have been proposed for use in such vessels. Self-expanding stents act like springs and will recover to their expanded or implanted configuration after being crushed.
One type of self-expanding stent is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,771, which stent has a radially and axially flexible, elastic tubular body with a predetermined diameter that is variable under axial movement of the ends of the body relative to each other and which is composed of a plurality of individually rigid but flexible and elastic thread elements defining a radially self-expanding helix. This type of stent is known in the art as a “braided stent” and is so designated herein. Placement of such stents in a body vessel can be achieved by a device which comprises an outer catheter for holding the stent at its distal end, and an inner piston which pushes the stent forward once it is in position.
However, braided stents have many disadvantages. They typically do not have the necessary radial strength to effectively hold open a diseased vessel. In addition, the plurality of wires or fibers used to make such stents could become dangerous if separated from the body of the stent, where they could pierce through the vessel. Therefore, there has been a desire to have a self-expanding stent which is cut from a tube of metal, which is the common manufacturing method for many commercially available balloon-expandable stents. In order to manufacture a self-expanding stent cut from a tube, the alloy used would preferably exhibit superelastic or psuedoelastic characteristics at body temperature, so that it is crush recoverable.
The prior art makes reference to the use of alloys such as Nitinol (Ni—Ti alloy), which have shape memory and/or superelastic characteristics, in medical devices which are designed to be inserted into a patient's body. The shape memory characteristics allow the devices to be deformed to facilitate their insertion into a body lumen or cavity and then be heated within the body so that the device returns to its original shape. Superelastic characteristics, on the other hand, generally allow the metal to be deformed and restrained in the deformed condition to facilitate the insertion of the medical device containing the metal into a patient's body, with such deformation causing the phase transformation. Once within the body lumen, the restraint on the superelastic member can be removed, thereby reducing the stress therein so that the superelastic member can return to its original un-deformed shape by the transformation back to the original phase.
Alloys having shape memory/superelastic characteristics generally have at least two phases. These phases are a martensite phase, which has a relatively low tensile strength and which is stable at relatively low temperatures, and an austenite phase, which has a relatively high tensile strength and which is stable at temperatures higher than the martensite phase.
Shape memory characteristics are imparted to the alloy by heating the metal at a temperature above which the transformation from the martensite phase to the austenite phase is complete, i.e. a temperature above which the austenite phase is stable (the Af temperature). The shape of the metal during this heat treatment is the shape “remembered.” The heat-treated metal is cooled to a temperature at which the martensite phase is stable, causing the austenite phase to transform to the martensite phase. The metal in the martensite phase is then plastically deformed, e.g. to facilitate the entry thereof into a patient's body. Subsequent heating of the deformed martensite phase to a temperature above the martensite to austenite transformation temperature causes the deformed martensite phase to transform to the austenite phase, and during this phase transformation the metal reverts back to its original shape if unrestrained. If restrained, the metal will remain martensitic until the restraint is removed.
Methods of using the shape memory characteristics of these alloys in medical devices intended to be placed within a patient's body present operational difficulties. For example, with shape memory alloys having a stable martensite temperature below body temperature, it is frequently difficult to maintain the temperature of the medical device containing such an alloy sufficiently below body temperature to prevent the transformation of the martensite phase to the austenite phase when the device was being inserted into a patient's body. With intravascular devices formed of shape memory alloys having martensite-to-austenite transformation temperatures well above body temperature, the devices can be introduced into a patient's body with little or no problem, but they must be heated to the martensite-to-austenite transformation temperature which is frequently high enough to cause tissue damage.
When stress is applied to a specimen of a metal such as Nitinol exhibiting superelastic characteristics at a temperature above which the austenite is stable (i.e. the temperature at which the transformation of martensite phase to the austenite phase is complete), the specimen deforms elastically until it reaches a particular stress level where the alloy then undergoes a stress-induced phase transformation from the austenite phase to the martensite phase. As the phase transformation proceeds, the alloy undergoes significant increases in strain but with little or no corresponding increases in stress. The strain increases while the stress remains essentially constant until the transformation of the austenite phase to the martensite phase is complete. Thereafter, further increases in stress are necessary to cause further deformation. The martensitic metal first deforms elastically upon the application of additional stress and then plastically with permanent residual deformation.
If the load on the specimen is removed before any permanent deformation has occurred, the martensitic specimen will elastically recover and transform back to the austenite phase. The reduction in stress first causes a decrease in strain. As stress reduction reaches the level at which the martensite phase transforms back into the austenite phase, the stress level in the specimen will remain essentially constant (but substantially less than the constant stress level at which the austenite transforms to the martensite) until the transformation back to the austenite phase is complete, i.e. there is significant recovery in strain with only negligible corresponding stress reduction. After the transformation back to austenite is complete, further stress reduction results in elastic strain reduction. This ability to incur significant strain at relatively constant stress upon the application of a load, and to recover from the deformation upon the removal of the load, is commonly referred to as superelasticity or pseudoelasticity. It is this property of the material which makes it useful in manufacturing tube cut self-expanding stents.
The prior art makes reference to the use of metal alloys having superelastic characteristics in medical devices which are intended to be inserted or otherwise used within a patient's body. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,665,905 (Jervis) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,445 (Sakamoto et al.). However, the prior art has yet to disclose any suitable tube-cut self-expanding stents. In addition, many of the prior art stents lacked the necessary rigidity or hoop strength to keep the body vessel open. In addition, many of the prior art stents have large openings at their expanded diameter. The smaller the openings are on an expanded stent, the more plaque or other deposits it can trap between the stent and the vessel wall. Trapping these deposits is important to the continuing health of the patient in that it helps prevent plaque prolapse into the vessel, restenosis of the vessel it is implanted into, and strokes caused by the release of embolic particles into the bloodstream.
One additional concern with stents, and with other medical devices, is that they may exhibit reduced radiopacity under X-ray fluoroscopy. To overcome this problem, it is common practice to attach markers made from highly radiopaque materials to the stent, or to use radiopaque materials in plating or coating processes. Those materials are typically gold, platinum, or tantalum. The prior art makes reference to these markers or processes in U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,771 (Boatman et al), U.S. Pat. No. 6,022,374 (Imran), U.S. Pat. No. 5,741,327 (Frantzen), U.S. Pat. No. 5,725,572 (Lam et al), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,526 (Anderson et al). However, due to the relative position of these materials in the galvanic series versus the position of the base metal of the stent in the galvanic series, there is a certain challenge to overcome; namely, that of galvanic corrosion.